Resume of Paul Gothard Knutson

5 Huron Way
Lawrenceville, New Jersey 08648
Phone: 609-977-1299
pk7fc044@westpost.net
US Citizen
Your toughest engineering and scientific challenges are my opportunities. With
deep experience in digital signal processing and communications, and broad gener
al engineering and scientific expertise, I can apply these foundational skills i
n a cross disciplinary fashion to create new and disruptive technological advanc
es for our mutual benefit.
Current Activities:
Technicolor, Princeton, NJ Principal Scientist
At present, I have several active projects. Looking to secure new bandwidth fo
r home video distribution and networking, my group is developing the cognitive r
adio IP for securing television whitespace channels for home use. We have deve
loped hardware and software to sense the RF spectrum to find whitespace at 18dB
below the noise floor, for ATSC, DVB, and wireless microphone signals. To demon
strate video distribution, we have produced a wireless video distribution system
using ATSC modulation, controlled by spectrum sensing results. I developed a m
ulti-threaded C application to control the system. By generating an interfering
ATSC or microphone signal in the current used whitespace channel, the system m
oves the video program to a different whitespace channel. This will be enhanced
by also enabling wireless networking via modified WiFi modulated to other white
space channels. Spectrum sensing will be augmented with geolocation informatio
n to determine actual whitespace channels, to minimize sensing and improve perfo
rmance.
Through the years at Thomson/Technicolor, I have become one of the primary expe
rts for general hardware and digital communications issues. This has been manif
est in a close relationship with the attorneys in the patents and licensing oper
ations, as well as other engineering groups in the lab in general. I have a han
ds-on modus operandi, ready to analyze and experiment to solve technical problem
s. For example, my recent patent infringement investigations include setting u
p the test environment and writing the software to capture the required packets,
decoding packets sent over Ethernet, MOCA, and QAM, interpreting the protocol u
sed to communicate between set top boxes (STB), decoding the data stored on STB
hard drives. The tests are based on examining the claims of Thomson/Technicolor
patents and are designed to prove or disprove infringement.
Recently, I have had the opportunity to open a couple of exploratory projects.
First, I started looking at opportunities using visible light communications (V
LC), IEEE 802.15.7. There is promise in this technology, as eventually all ligh
ting will move toward LEDs, and these are easy to modulate. I set up a demons
tration with IR lasers and anti-Stokes phosphors as a possible 3D volumetric dis
play medium. This caught enough interest to become a full exploratory project b
y the Technicolor Board of Distinguished Scientists. This is truly multidiscipl
inary project, including physics, optics, electronics, mechanical design, and ch
emistry.
Past Experience:
Thomson, Inc., Thomson Multimedia, Princeton, NJ Principal Member Technical Staf
f
6/08 - 12/09 Investigating technology for DVB S3, proposed third generation digi
tal broadcast satellite technology.
4/07 - 6/08 Thomson's Proposal for a mobile terrestrial broadcast television sta
ndard based on the ATSC standard, ATSC-MH. Prepared initial proposal, designed
equalizer with colleague in Indianapolis, tested full FPGA hardware system (12 A
ltera EB2S180s).
7/06 - 4/08 Participated in the special review of communication, signal processi
ng, video and bus interface patents in Thomson's patent portfolio to help find v
alue in Thomson's patents by examining whether the claims read on new standards
or technologies.
2/06 - 4/07 Support for development of an Advanced ATSC 8-VSB demodulator. Inve
stigated advanced equalizer filter architectures including affine projection LMS
, improved proportional normalized LMS, RLS variants.
1/05 - 2/06 Design and development of new components and systems for Cable TV ne
tworks to enable enhanced Peer to Peer communications in the cable plant, reduci
ng need for bandwidth through the entire cable.
1/01 - 1/05 Development of 3GPP WCDMA handset IP. Used a Pentek DSP platform wi
th FPGAs in prototyping. Designed a mezzanine card with 2 EP1S80 FPGAs, ADCs, D
ACs for prototyping algorithms.
Thomson Consumer Electronics, Indianapolis, IN Senior Member Technical Staff
7/98 - 12/00 Development of a multi-handset multi-line cordless phone system. P
roprietary Subband ADPCM coding, DSSS modulation, simple block coding technique.
Full ASIC built.
7/97 - 7/98 MMDS system, equalizer design.
7/95 - 7/97 Cable QAM Demodulator/Equalizer design. Full FPGA prototype complet
ed. Digital symbol timing recovery system used in many Thomson consumer electro
nics products.
7/93 - 7/95 NTSC Deghosting - Deconvolution of NTSC Television Channel to remove
ghosts. Involved in related standards body with Thomson proposal. Two ASICs d
eveloped for this project - first and second generation chips.
7/92 - 7/93 Development of digital sample rate converters for video resampling,
and eventually digital demodulation.
7/90 - 7/92 Support of equalizer and DSP design for Advanced Compatible Televisi
on, a joint Thomson and Sarnoff proposal for an enhanced definition television s
ystem preceding full HDTV deployment. The decision was made to go to full digit
al HDTV, eliminating the need for this interim solution.
Sterling Development Group, Burlington, Vermont VP Research and Development
7/87 - 7/90 This was my entrepreneurial adventure - I was a partner with 5 other
s and a few employees working in various electronic consulting opportunities in
computer graphics, video, image processing and optical character recognition, la
ser measurement systems.
Simmonds Precision Products, Inc. Vergennes, Vermont Senior Member Technical St
aff
4/86 - 7/87 Worked on signal processing boards and switch mode power supply desi
gn for avionic systems. Security clearance.
Vermont Microsystems, Inc. Winooski, Vermont Senior Design Engineer
7/83 - 4/86 Design of computer graphics hardware.
Strengths:
Experience in Signal Processing, Digital Communications, Video, Acquisition and
Tracking of Digital Communication Signals, Adaptive Filtering, Direct Sequence
Spread Spectrum, CDMA, Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum, MPEG, Speech Compressi
on, Sample Rate Conversion, FPGA and ASIC design, Analog and Mixed Signal Proces
sing, Lasers and Optics, Switched Mode Power Conversion, Computer Graphics.
Proficient in C, Matlab, Simulink, and VHDL. Familiar with other languages and
tools.
Recently Issued US Patents:
7580722: Control of a power amplifier for reducing power consumption in a transc
eiver. Cellular telephone power amplifier power reduction.
7401349: Satellite television system ground station having wideband multi-channe
l LNB converter/transmitter architecture utilizing a frequency stabilized common
oscillator. Covers a design for a single coaxial cable RF interface for a LEOS
ground station.
7383018 Satellite television system ground station having wideband multi-channel
LNB converter/transmitter architecture with coarse tuner in outdoor unit. Cove
rs a design for a single coaxial cable RF interface for a LEOS ground station.
6959055 Multi-stage automatic gain control for spread-spectrum receivers. AGC f
or WCDMA cellular phone.
6940936 Alternate timing signal for a vestigial sideband modulator. Uses a rec
eived ATSC signal as a timing reference for an ATSC modulator - intended as a lo
w cost frequency reference for consumer electronics devices with ATSC outputs.

6904031 Retrieving stored data from a base unit of a multi-line wireless phone s
ystem. Part of a cordless phone system design, detailing transfer of informatio
n from the base station to the handset.
6900828 Fade resistant digital transmission and reception system. A simple mean
s of protecting a signal from occasional flat fades.
Publications:
Gao, Wen; Knutson, Paul; Thomson proposal for ATSC Mobile Handheld standard, sub
mitted to ATSC July 2007.
Knutson, Paul; Mohan, Chandra; Ramaswamy, Kumar; Digital Cordless Telephony, Tut
orial at the IEEE International Conference on Consumer Electronics, June 1998.
Knutson, Paul; Ramaswamy, Kumar; Stewart, John; Digital Broadcast Communications
, Tutorial at the IEEE International Conference on Consumer Electronics, June 19
97.
Lin W.; Campbell, Eric; Knutson, Paul; Richardson, C. D.; Smalley, David; Vogler
, Frank; A Reconfigurable Video Ghost Cancelling Filter Chip, Proceedings of the
IEEE 1993 Custom Integrated Circuits Conference, May 9-12, 1993, pp. 15.3.1 - 1
5.3.3.
Knutson, Paul; Stability in IIR Deghosting Filters, 1992 IEEE International Conf
erence on Consumer Electronics. June 2-4, pp. 80-81.
Knutson, Paul; McNeely, David; Horlander, Karl; An Optimal Approach to Digital R
aster Mapper Design, IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics, Vol. 37, No. 4,
November 1991, pp. 746-752.
Knutson, Paul; McNeely, David; Horlander, Karl; Romesburg, Eric; An Optimal App
roach to Digital Raster Mapper Design, 1991 IEEE International Conference on Con
sumer Electronics, June 5-7, 1991. pp. 72-73.
Education:
Graduate DSP and image processing courses at Purdue offered through Thomson, Las
ers and optics course at the University of Vermont.
BSEE from MIT, 1983.
Honors & Memberships: Technicolor Fellowship Network, IEEE Broadcast Society, I
EEE Communications Society, IEEE Circuits and Systems Society, OSA
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